Town asks state for funds for oil cleanup

Published 1:00 am, Thursday, December 2, 2004

NEW FAIRFIELD - Officials are seeking state money to cover a $450,000 bill for cleaning up the recent heating oil spill outside the town's police department.

According to local legislators, Gov.
M. Jodi Rell
has agreed to ask the
Bond Commission
for $500,000 to meet the town's remediation costs.
If the commission approves the request at its meeting next week, the money would come from the state's Urban Act Fund.
"This would be a tremendous gift for the town,"
New Fairfield First Selectman Peggy Katkocin
said Wednesday. "It would certainly alleviate any tax impact on the town."
Without state or federal help, officials say they would have to take money town's own coffers. Katkocin said cleanup costs are expected to eventually total $450,000.
"There is no way a town can prepare or budget for an upset like this," she said.
State Sen.
David Cappiello
and state Reps.
Mary Ann Carson
and
Janice Giegler
, all Republicans whose districts include New Fairfield, sought Rell's intervention.
"Obviously the leak could be a severe risk both to the environment and the public health of New Fairfield if it were not dealt with swiftly and properly," said Cappiello.
New Fairfield's oil emergency began on Oct. 28 when a line failure in an underground tank at the police department leaked 2,500 gallons of heating oil that ran through a drain system into nearby Ball Pond Brook.
The oil traveled an estimated half-mile from the department on Route 39 as local volunteer firefighters and emergency cleanup crews moved in to stem the spill.
Since then,
Fleet Environmental Services of Bethel
and the engineering firm of Fuss and O'Neil of Manchester have been helping with cleanup operations.
In the aftermath of the spill, the police department tank was drained and removed. Town officials say the site of the old tank is now considered clean and has been covered.
A replacement tank is expected to be erected above ground later this month.
Other underground tanks at the nearby Company A Firehouse were also drained after failing pressure inspections and temporary tanks were installed.
Katkocin said most of the oil from the spill was recovered from the site of the police department's tank and any oil in the brook was removed by using barrier materials.
Officials from the Bethel company were back on the spill site Wednesday to install more barrier materials and to conduct further checks.
"All tests in the stream close to homes have been negative," Katkocin said. "We wanted to make sure nothing got into any private wells. We'll be doing some more testing this Friday."
Katkocin said the state
Department of Environmental Protection
will still officially consider New Fairfield to be in an emergency mode until further testing shows the town is facing "no other threat."
DEP monitoring, Katkocin said, will likely last over the next year before the agency finally signs off on the emergency.